Moai 6: Unexpected Guests for Game Night, Date Night

Another week and another time out for Game Night, Date Night with James and Abby. This week they'll put their resource management skills to the test with the new Moai Game, Moai 6 Unexpected Guests. Will this game provide better entertainment than the last date night fizzle? Will they be able to entertain the new island visitors? Will Abby let James play at all? Find out in this week's Game Night, Date Night!

by Abby & James Bennett on
07-18-2018

Well last week was kind of a disaster. The kids were both sick so any free time we had went to taking them to the doctors, waiting at the pharmacy for their medicine, shopping for sick supplies, and trying to keep the house from looking like a disaster zone. But, good news, we soldiered through and everyone's doing much better this week, so we are back on track with Date Night!

This week it was Abby's turn to pick the game, so, of course, she went for the new resource management game on the list: Moai 6: Unexpected Guests. I think she really just likes to see how badly I suck at these types of games. But, I put on a brave face, poured myself an adult beverage, and smiled without comment at my loving wife's selection.

Abby took the driver's seat first, since she's much better at these types of games, and I figured I'd let her get a feel for it first, so I could have a chance to watch before I made a complete fool of myself. We both decided to just play with time limits since it didn't really matter if we made the time or not. We could always replay the level. But if you don't want to hear the anxiety-riddled ticking of the clock as it winds down, then opt to play the easy mode.

The first obstacle of the game was figuring out how to actually start. What can I say... we're tired and a little dumb by the end of the day so after several moments of us just clicking around, we finally realized the "play" button was on the shield. But come on... in our defense... the colors blend in a bit too well and it just looked like a tribal marking that was easily overlooked. Or we're idiots. Either way, we did eventually find the play button and were then launched into a little animation that laid out the story for us.

Boy was this annoying. I'm all about a good story, but we both read pretty quickly, and we couldn't click to move the story forward. We had to sit there and wait for nothing to happen. And it was a good few screens as the game went through this elaborate set up. We get it... visitors are on the island; the chief's children are going to be their guides. Great. Can we move on already? Some of us don't have all day before exhaustion eventually sets in and we're both passed out at the computer.

We finally made it to the map screen and got acquainted with the basic layout. It was all pretty straightforward. To start the level, just click on the little dot on the map and then click start in the bottom right hand screen. You also had a backpack in the top left and an achievement screen on the top right.

After looking around, we began level one, eager to see how the game measured up... and whether I would be able to actually play it without Abby laughing hysterically at me.

Once the level began, there were some onscreen instructions that helped us through the initial stages of level one. We had workers who could gather resources and clear and repair the roads. We had buildings that could produce materials. For example, farms will produce food for you. However, they don't automatically produce. You have to keep moving your mouse over the resource to pick it up. I could already tell that was going to be a huge obstacle for me because I just tend to want to focus on the next step with these games. I don't want to have to keep going back over and over again to collect things. That's super annoying, to be honest.

After a bit of a stressful start, we completed the level, but we were nowhere near the time limit, so we had to settle for zero stars. I could already tell Abby was fuming... Not a great way to start our date!

Abby wanted to go back and replay the level, but I convinced her to keep moving because I was sure there were more game details that were going to be introduced.

I wanted us to keep forging ahead so we could get a feel for Moai 6: Unexpected Guests first before we started going back and replaying levels. And, sure enough, the next few levels introduced more resource buildings and magic spells.

I wasn't too impressed with the tutorial. The game would pop up these messages to try to explain something to you as you played, but honestly, we were focused so much on playing that it was hard to catch them. They were also these transparent messages and so they were really hard to see. Plus, if we were clicking away, we often missed them, so we had no idea what they said. It led to even greater frustrations.

After playing through the first 10 levels and not earning gold for any of them, we were ready to throw in the towel. Well... At least I was. Moai 6: Unexpected Guests was not for me, but Abby was determined to hammer away at it for an hour or so after I gave up.

I think our overall conclusion is that the game was a bit clunky in the mechanics. We both disliked having to mouse over items to pick them up. And was just trying way too hard to be challenging... To the point where they made Moai 6: Unexpected Guests way too complex in terms of everything you needed to do, especially in the beginner levels.

So there goes another disappointing game night, date night. Hopefully next week will see our luck turn. Good night everyone!